


In your place, there were a thousand other faces...

by YourFadedGlory (HisNameWasAce)



Series: Judgement [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Hurt Steve Rogers, Imprisonment, M/M, Neglect, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:07:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisNameWasAce/pseuds/YourFadedGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve took the perfunctory steps backward until his shoulder blades were pressed to the cold concrete while the tray was slid in. A styrofoam bowl filled with pale brown mush that looked a whole lot like oatmeal and tasted a whole lot like nothing, a styrofoam cup filled with lukewarm water, two green pills the size of paperclips, and a chocolate bar?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or, the one where Steve's been missing for years but the whole world just assumes he's been on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In your place, there were a thousand other faces...

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> _People are not naturally either friends or enemies: friendship and enmity arise from circumstances. -Ritu Ghatourey._  
> 

Steve knows he surrendered sometime in January, but on the inside there’s no way to keep track of time. The lights come on and go off, he sleeps and wakes accordingly, but after the first week or so it started to get harder to keep track.

 

This time, when the lights come on there’s a new guard sitting watch, one Steve hasn’t seen before. He’s big, probably bigger than Steve is now, with a mop of dusty brown curls that remind him vaguely of Bruce and a bow lipped smile reminiscent of Clint’s. The images, familiar but fading slightly around the finer details, make his chest ache just a little worse.

 

“Morning,” Steve says gruffly, as he levers himself up and off the small cot he’d curled onto. He greeted every new guard the same way and got one of three reactions every time: a searing electric jolt from the collar, a noncommittal grunt, or a curt return of the greeting. Option one was the worst, option two while not ideal was the most prevalent, and option three was about as rare as hot water in his shoe locker of a shower.

 

“Morning Captain,” The guard said, getting up from his chair to fetch the usual morning food tray from the table outside his mesh door cell.

 

Steve took the perfunctory steps backward until his shoulder blades were pressed to the cold concrete while the tray was slid in. A styrofoam bowl filled with pale brown mush that looked a whole lot like oatmeal and tasted a whole lot like nothing, a styrofoam cup filled with lukewarm water, two green pills the size of paperclips, and a chocolate bar?

 

Steve blinked down at the shiny brown wrapper, _Hershey’s,_ written across it in bold silvery white letters. Folding himself over, he picked it up by the corner of the wrapper, afraid to melt the chocolate inside with the heat of his fingers. He shuffled toward the wall of shimmering mesh and cleared his throat softly, the electric field tingling across his skin and setting his hair on end the nearer he got. “You forgot this,” Steve said, holding it as near to the mesh as he dared.

 

“No I didn’t, it’s for you Captain. Happy Birthday,” The guard replied with a small smile.

 

_Happy Birthday._

 

Steve blinked, first at the guard and then at the candy bar in his hand. He’d turned himself in, in January. It was July. It’d been almost six months and he hadn’t had a clue.

 

“I, um, thank you.” Steve retreated away from the mesh, gripping the chocolate just as delicately. “It’s Steve by the way, just Steve.”

 

“Andrew,” the guard replied, taking his seat and pulling out a sheaf of paperwork. God, what Steve wouldn’t give for a pencil and some paper.

 

For a moment he contemplated trading the chocolate bar, but at the risk of looking ungrateful, he decided against it. Setting the chocolate bar back on the tray, he collected the whole thing and moved to sit on his cot. At one square every other day it would last him twenty-four days, his mouth watered at just the thought.

 

Andrew became his time keeper, him and the chocolate bars that Steve rationed to count the days. Every time Andrew was on rotation, Steve could look forward to something. Sometimes it was chocolate bars, sometimes it was sections of newspaper, but the best days were the days that Andrew could find the right frequency on his walkie talkie and if Steve sat close enough to the mesh that he could feel the electricity tickle across his skin, he could listen to the soft strains of whatever radio channel they’d tapped into.

 

The air in the cell grew colder as winter set in, that or the chill from the ice baths that Ross was subjecting him to had settled permanently into his bones. Each dunking was one-part torture, one-part experiment. Steve didn’t know what it was exactly they were hoping to accomplish, or at least he didn’t until the lights flickered on one day and he woke up feverish and congested. They were the first signs of the cold that set in, set in and stayed. Within two rotations of lights he’d developed chills and a hacking cough that made his lungs sore. Whatever was in those green horse pills was suppressing the effects of the serum and doing it well.

 

* * *

 

By Christmas they’d stopped dunking him in the ice baths, in a moment of satisfied glee over his contraction of a cold, Ross had even gifted him with a thin fleece blanket. Steve was hesitant to take it, cautionary history stories about smallpox laced gifts nudging at the back of his mind, but at the front of it was the cold.

 

He was so cold.

 

Andrew had tried to help, bringing in thermoses of hot tea that helped chase away his lingering sniffles, though the cough persisted. For Christmas the thermos had been full of cocoa, so rich and warm it almost put Steve to straight to sleep. He’d thought that was his gift, before Andrew slid a rectangular package under the gap usually used for the food tray.

 

It was wrapped in newspaper clippings that were carefully void of any information on the Avengers or his merry band of fugitives. They were happy article about an animal shelter that had every animal adopted by Christmas eve, a VA hospital that had received a substantial donation, and a few of the usual comics. Steve peeled the tape up slowly with the blunted edge of his nail, removing each of the three pieces so that he didn’t lose any of the text beneath them.

 

There beneath the newspaper wrapping was a sketchbook, a sketchbook, a pack of cheap mechanical pencils, and a twelve pack of Crayola colored pencils. It wasn’t top notch art supplies, but it was more than he’d ever hoped to have again.

 

Looking up, Steve ignored the dull sting in his eyes and offered Andrew a small smile. “I wish I had something to give you,” He said quietly, running his thumb over the corner of the pages and relishing the feel of the paper.

 

“Draw me something, we’ll call it even,” Andre replied, fiddling with his walkie talkie until he found a station letting out soft strains of Christmas music.

 

“What would you like?” Steve asked.

 

Andrew slipped a picture into his cell and Steve took it without hesitation. “This is…”

 

“My sister, you saved her that day,” Andrew said softly.

 

Steve ran the pad of his thumb over the picture, tracing her delicate face and soft blond curls. He drew her as he remembered her, standing in the middle of a New York street. Instead of sketching in Chitauri invaders and debris, Steve drew her in her apron under a cloud dotted sky, the way that day should have been. It was the least he could do.

 

* * *

 

One Christmas bled into two and then three. The pills changed color and size and shape. The bowl of mush they fed him became soggy with water and then paste dry as cooks came and went. Ross documented his weight loss and illnesses with glee, for kicks he was put back in the uniform he’d surrendered himself in. The Kevlar weave hung off his body heavily, digging into his paper pale skin and chafing bloody as he paraded around in it until Ross was satisfied and had him dressed back in the familiar gray canvas jumpsuit.

 

Andrew was still a bright point, smuggling in his sketch book and supplies on each of his rotations. Steve drew Bucky, face finally lax as he lay in his jungle grave in Wakanda, a round shadow in the middle of his forehead where he’d put the bullet. He tried to draw the Avengers but was never satisfied with the final product. The cut of Natasha’s cheek bones always looked wrong, he couldn’t remember if Clint’s eyes were blue or green, how curly Bruce’s hair had been or if Sam tilted his cap left or right. Steve tried to draw Tony but the only image he could bring to mind was the last look he’d seen on the other man’s face, terrified and hurt, laying prone on that Siberian mountainside.

 

Eventually he stopped trying and settled for drawing Andrew, sitting in his chair and hunched over a clipboard. He drew his cell and he drew Ross, things he could readily recall and visualize without really trying.

 

A few days past the three-year anniversary of his surrender and incarceration, Andrew showed up with a newspaper clipping of Tony and Bruce and three candy bars instead of one. It was clear something was wrong but Steve didn’t ask, he just pulled off a square of chocolate and set to work memorizing the new lines in Tony’s face. He didn’t look much different, shadowed eyes and press ready smirk, as healthy as Tony was capable of being with the hospital he’d funded in Lagos towering behind him.

 

When the dinner tray arrived with a styrofoam bowl of mush, a styrofoam cup of water, and two orange pills the size of shirt buttons, Steve finally stopped sketching. He closed the book with his pencils tucked neatly inside and slid it back through the slat.

 

“This is my final rotation,” Andrew said quietly, picking up the sketch book.

 

Steve had figured as much. No more Andrew meant no more tea or cocoa, no more radio or newspaper clippings, no quiet conversations or chocolate, no more sketching. This was prison, punishment, it wasn’t meant to be fun, he reminded himself sternly.

 

“You’ve been a good friend,” Steve said with a thin smile.

 

“I can be a better one, I can take this to them,” Andrew offered, holding up the sketchbook. “I can let them know you’re here.”

 

Steve shook his head. “It’ll only endanger yourself and them. I surrendered to be punished for my crimes, I chose this,” he said firmly, mustering the strength to smile a bit wider, sincerer. “You’ve done more than enough these past few years.”

 

Andrew’s brow furrowed but he didn’t object. “Take care of yourself Steve,” he said quietly, tucking the sketchbook into the safety of his bag.

 

“You too.” Steve waved stiffly until Andrew disappeared behind the sliding steel doors.

 

The lights went out and he was alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kinda sick of everyone leaving Tony absolutely destroyed and acting like Steve walked out of Civil War unscathed, so this happened, and may continue to happen for a few more installments.


End file.
